One of the largest industrial estates in Europe, Park Royal is home to more than 2,000 businesses and 40,000 employees. Over several months, London-based designer Bahbak Hashemi-Nezhad visited hundreds of Park Royal businesses and met with workers to catalogue what was being made after-hours and in between tasks on the estate.
The resulting visual archive contains a diverse range of personal, playful, and practical objects which, although made within an industrial context, fall outside of supply and demand. Each of these projects – from a tyre dealer’s rubber chair to a metal technician’s welded flowers to a glazier’s decorative mirrors to an office manager’s feminist embroidery – demonstrates alternative uses of materials, processes, and techniques within Park Royal’s workspaces.
Begun in 2019 and completed once the estate’s businesses reopened in 2021, Work-Leisure seeks to complicate our understandings of the dynamics between occupation and recreation.
An exhibition of the photographs will be presented alongside the Work-Leisure publication at Hatton Metalcraft from 24 – 26 September as part of London Design Festival. The work also exists online at www.work-leisure.uk
Bahbak Hashemi-Nezhad is a London-based designer. His studio produces work ranging from design for the public realm to workshops, games, spaces and objects. He has worked with cultural and educational institutions, the public sector and local authorities to develop tools and methodologies that proactively engage publics in design processes.
Hashemi-Nezhad has developed projects, exhibited and conducted masterclasses both in the UK and internationally, including with the Serpentine Galleries; Greater London Authority; Victoria and Albert Museum; Tokyo Metropolitan Government; Shanghai Biennale; Liverpool Biennial; and Service Design Network, Singapore. He is the recipient of international design awards, research grants and fellowships and has trained at the Royal College of Art, where he currently leads a Masters platform focusing on experimental co-design.
www.bh-n.com
@bahbak2000
Work-Leisure by Bahbak Hashemi-Nezhad is the second Art Commission of OPDC’s Great Place Scheme Programme and is being produced by Create London. The Great Place Scheme has been supported by the Arts Council England and the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The commission and all Great Place Scheme projects form part of, In the Making, a collection of activities that Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC) are delivering to shine a light on the positive changes happening now as part of this once-in-a-lifetime regeneration opportunity, delivering everyday improvements with local communities.